3039: Human Altitude

Human Altitude

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Title text: I wonder what surviving human held the record before balloons (excluding edge cases like jumping gaps on a mountain bridge). Probably it was someone falling from a cliff into snow or water, but maybe it involved something weird like a gunpowder explosion or volcano.

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Explanation

This is one of 53 incomplete explanations: Created by a GUNPOWDER CATAPULT ACCIDENT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

The comic purports to show the altitudes of humans over time, starting from a little after 1700. It uses a logarithmic vertical scale in order to indicate the finer details of 'low level' altitudes, yet fit the highest achievements onto the page. The measurements do not count altitude due to the ground beneath them, so a resident of Tibet or the high Peruvian Andes (for example) does not normally gain any particular advantage.

Prior to 1783, the first confirmed ascent of a human in a balloon, the line's high-points are indicated to be due to "various falls", i.e. a person who was on the top of a particularly high building/cliff/tree suddenly finding themselves (for an instant or two, at least) the person 'lucky' enough to be considered the furthest above the ground (it is at times like this that living at a higher absolute altitude might grant an 'advantage' to the individual who suddenly discovers their previously high standing-spot to no longer be as reliable as they thought). It also suggests that "catapult accidents" (indicated as "hilarious") may also contribute to the (momentary) gain in altitude. The limit to this period's ability to exist at altitude appears to be around 100 metres, which is perhaps mostly what a particular precipitous (and precarious) cliff-top might contribute to the situation.

Once balloon flights start, heights of up to 10km are attained. And though there were some dangers from this, as early aeronauts discovered, it might at least now be presumed that some of these peaks were attained by individuals who had previously marked a prior instantaneous altitude on the graph.

Shortly after the 1900s, airplanes dominate the graph. And the rise in utility of passenger aircraft (before World War 2; but especially afterwards, following a period where regular and extended high-altitude flight has been experienced by bomber pilots of various nations) ensures not only that there are people attaining greater and greater altitudes, but also that there are also always other people in the air, ensuring that the lesser 'maximum altitude' periods still have people a significant number of kilometres in the air.

Interestingly, the lower-limit, all the way up to the invention of the airplane, seems to stay at about two metres (around 1881, the lowest marked position seems to be only slightly above 1 metre), which might represent the possibility of there always being at least someone climbing up a ladder and/or jumping off of a hay-cart.

Once spaceflight becomes a thing (interestingly, marked around the late 1960s, though it actually started in April 1961), that greatly increases the upper spikes for the (implied) duration of the orbital flights.

The Apollo Program is then indicated by both label and a notable spike as (between Apollo 8 in December 1968 and Apollo 17 in December 1972), men from Earth were sent around the Moon and attained altitudes 'above the Earth' of approximately 400,000km in the process.

Since the end of the original Moon landings, the upper spikes settled down quite significantly back to 'only' generally low orbital distances, but he very latest era, marked "Space Station", seems to coincide with the current continuous inhabitation of space, which officially started in November 2000. Since that date, there has always been someone at approximately 400km altitude (give or take changes in the orbit, and of the terrain below), with occasionally some yet higher person(s) on certain missions (e.g. servicing the Hubble Space Telescope, May 2009 at 515km). The graph does not seem to show the blip created by Polaris Dawn's 1,400 km 'new record' of September 2024, but this may be just off the right-hand edge of the graph.

Though the historical validity is sometimes argued, it is interesting to note that (as early as the 6th century CE), experiments with man-flying kites may have produced (semi-)brief spikes in the altitude record for the time. Gliders of the later era (starting roughly at the start of the 1800s) were probably eclipsed by the indicated balloons, but may have produced some of the spikes seen (above 10 metres but well below the multi-kilometre peaks), as occasional departures off the tops of hills were accomplished without quite so much ill-fortune, or at least without being entirely unintentional.

Tornadoes are another possible cause of high-altitude humans. There are multiple credible stories, like this one, of people being lifted off the ground and surviving. In theory, they could have been lifted well over 100 meters and still survived.

Transcript

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Discussion

I splurged a few paragraphs to try to deal with each detail (and a few things not directly obvious, but related). However, it's a mess and here (UK) it's basically past my bedtime and I have an early(ish) start tomorrow so... I know that if I had spent another half hour on it, it would have been tighter (less florid?), and would be linking to Yuri Gagarin, Montgolfier, Hubble, man-capable chinese kites, the likes of George Cayley, etc. And I never actually mentioned the Title Text, though the last paragraph I put is sort of relevent so might just need an "In the title text, it says ..., and, as it happens, ...". I shall leave it up to the editing-gods as to whether my sacrifice is acceptable or entirely in vain... Such is life! And so, goodnight. 172.68.205.119 01:39, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

I linked up a couple Wikipedia articles with Template:w and wish I could add all of those things, but alas: today’s the last day of the semester on a 3 day weekend here in the States and I’ve been sick all week. I’m going to be going now to work on my missing assignments and hopefully finish them, really wish that we can finish up the explanation as quick as we usually do! 42.book.addict^{Talk to me!} 01:48, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

It seems strange how jagged this is and how low the lows are. Since roughly 1930 (certainly since 1940 at the very latest) someone, somewhere in the world has been flying in an airplane, at a minimum of probably 4.5km for the lowest person. And since like 1955 there's always at least someone over like 7km roughly, and since the jet age like 10km+. This isn't the kind of carelessness that xkcd is known for, unless I'm missing something.Kchinger (talk) 03:27, 18 January 2025 (UTC)kchinger

The Apollo part of the graph implies an at least weekly, probably daily or finer resolution. Aviation unlikely reached 4.5 km above surface on a daily basis until transpacific high altitude airliners became a regularity well after WW2. Planes of the 1930s could achieve greater heights, but usually only attempted when moutains forced them to (so it was not height above ground) and high altitude Zeppelin bombers of WW1 did not fly on a daily basis, sometimes leaving week long gaps between campaigns. However, the pre-airplane lows are still wrong: Pole vaulting has been documented since ancient egypts for crossing of crevices, bodies of water, etc. giving a guaranteed minimum of 2-3 meters. Cliff jumping in the 10s of meters range is also likely to have occured daily somewhere on the globe long before the 20th century and I would not be surprised if some tyrannt created a phase of more than 100 m daily by intensive cliff throwing. (As with the ancient chineses kite observation flights, it might be interesting to extend this graph well into the past, at least up to Spartan postnatal parenthood planning.) 172.70.250.194 16:06, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Aviation unlikely reached 4.5 km above surface on a daily basis until transpacific high altitude airliners became a regularity well after WW2. Planes of the 1930s could achieve greater heights, but usually only attempted when moutains forced them to... The limit is the humans. Past 10k or 15k feet (~4.5km) they go loopy then pass out. Pressurized cabins are costly. Wiley Post flew past 17,000 ft (to 50kft!) in 1934 with a pot on his head, after two other suits split their seams. War forces high flight: the B-17 crews had oxygen bottles and electric heat suits; they did fly about every day but thin air was the least of their problems. B-25 was pressurized but not nice inside. The Constellation (the world's finest tri-motor) was one of the first shirtsleeve cabins, to 24,000 ft (7,300m), but was a very premium ride. The DC-2, DC-3, and DC-4 were unpressurized (a few test DC-4s tried it). Piston engine output tends to zero by 55k ft, even with supercharger. The real move to high altitude comes with turbojets (Comet is credited with first pressurized production passenger plane), Boeing 707, Caravelle, DC8, etc which often work better far above 20k feet. --PRR (talk) 20:09, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

While pesky waterbags limit the altitude of passenger aircraft, military, scientific and perhaps even postal/fright aviation went past 4.5 km without pressurized cabins. As mentioned, London was bombed at the end of WW1 from Zeppelins with regular service ceilings well above 6 km, the record was set at 7.3 km. And these did not even carry oxygen for the full flight time, as did record attempts. Take a link to the first flights above Everest in the early 30s: https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/first-flight-expedition-everest-1933/ However, this is all record/rare stuff for top peaks. With overlapping nights in Europa and America, the global low of the 30s was probably limited by some BOAC cruisers flying 500 to 1.000 m above the sea or some valley floor in southeast Asia. 172.71.148.59 22:19, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

For the "Apollo bits", I actually have (fairly) precise data, but the question is whether the spiky bits resemble the reality at all. Here's a version with accurately positioned timestamps, but with the the altitude normalised. Launch is at bottom, time in lunar orbit is at top. To keep the data short I have removed the 'oscillation in orbit" of them all (except for 13, which just looped around and came straight back out again), and the track of the landers (as never really gets any further away, averaged over a lunar orbiter orbit) as these things aren't really isn't visible if overviewing the whole program. Blue=orbit-only, Green=orbit-with-landing, Magenta is 13's mission. All sat on a month-start scale (thicker lines are year-starts), for reference.

If you want to see it, copy the text into a file, save/rename as a .svg and open it in any modern browser. (There are other ways of opening SVGs, but that's probably the easiest way for most of those who don't have a preference.) ...to make it look more like the comic, I suggest you make the stroke-width for the missionLines group huuuuuuge!!!! ;) 162.158.74.118 21:14, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Some of the text (both in the explanation and the "into snow or water" in the title text) seems to suggest a "who wasn't shortly killed" that isn't stated in the chart. 172.69.246.150 05:55, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

"into snow or water" is in the title text which is about surviving... --Lupo (talk) 13:05, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

I wonder why the chart does not consider parachutes? They might have been available around the same time as balloons, maybe earlier? Captain Nemo (talk) 12:29, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

A parachutist can onyl start as high as his ballon, so that would make no difference until paragliding became a sport (way too late). However, most highs are still utterly wrong due to the omission of high altitude balooning from the mid-19th century onwards: It seems that no true airplane has ever beaten older baloon records. AT ALL. In fact, among all the objects capable of aerodynamic flight, only the X-2, the X-15 and the Space Shuttle set new 'maximum manned altidude' records going beyond aerostats of their time. However, all three ascended in balistic, rocketpowered flight, only using the lift of their wings during return. So humanitys pinnacle has always been defined by people thrown of cliffs, people attached to kites, peoples in baloons or people on rockets. 172.70.250.194 16:06, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

huh. no joke comic. youtu.be/miLcaqq2Zpk 15:43, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Yuan Huangtou is a strong contender for the question in the title text. As a punishment he was sent to the sky on a big kite which was then let go. He came down 2.5 km away and survived. It seems entirely possible that he may have reached altitudes of several hundred meters. 162.158.95.196 19:05, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

From my recollection of a book on Chinese kite history, I'd put the max for a person-carrying kite at around a couple hundred meters. 162.158.41.9 04:59, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

As a technical argument, I'd mention that what makes a kite a kite is that it is tethered (albeit dynamically, whether to a winch or a firmly ground-based handler, rather than necessarily tied to the ground; this makes the kites in kite-surfing/sailing/skating/etc a bit of an edge condition, but still valid as the canchor' is only ever itself airborne by temporarily depleting the kite's 'lift ability').

Unless it was at the end of a 2.5km tether, at least part of the time the kite was released became a glider. And the means for keeping a glider up (and then ultimately not descending too fast!) are somewhat different from how you make a kite controllable. Even if you successfully raised a man-kite up and brought them back down several times (getting both the payer-out person and the payload-person used to how to control the kite-flight), the attitude and augmenting flight-surfaces that the kite used to get/keep/maintain height would probably be entirely wrong (perhaps even counterproductive!) when the release happens and the 'passenger' needs to now suddenly develop the need to "fly a glider" (or, maybe, a suboptimal parasail)

I would not be surprised if many (reluctant) 'test pilots' failed to work out how not to stall (and other forms of flight-failure) in the time and distance they had before they reached the ground. The later ones might have a better hash of it if they were taken to witness their first compatriots' efforts (and those initial 'candidates' were able to shout down what they were feeling/doing, during their final fateful moments, to assist both the builders and future-fliers)... But, in the days before any actual aviation experience (let alone any form of flight-recorder, for both easier detailing of events and the repeatable playback for their better analysis), quite a bit of luck (or some coincidentally instinctive panic-induced response to falling, perhaps somehow harking back to the most recent common ancestor with a sugarglider/flying-squirrel/etc) will have played a part in whoever it might have been who rode a once-kite-now-glider down.

Or, possibly, part of the luck was that the released tether was long enough to drag on the ground (given the options for rope/chord, around that time, and possibly the spool it was unspooled from, before the spool itself was released (by accident/design)), and with a strong enough wind and a consistently 'draggy' free-tether, it maintained a kite-like flight profile for the suggested distance (never being any higher than when ground-tethered, but only very gradually losing its initial height), such that the CFIT at the end was a 'survivable' (legs first? kite-structure acted as an initial crumple-zone?) landing.

Of course, it's at least partly a legendary account. Could be somewhat contrived from retellings and embelishments, 'originally' just being (out of many such 'experiments' with 'volunteers') a controlled rise that was then re-winched-in, conflated with what happened when the tether snapped/etc, during a particularly windy day, and where the resulting wreckage was discovered. I think it's possible it happened (and one might even be able to plan to re-enact it, with modern knowledge of aeronautics and hands-on experience with all the more recent methods and means of flying), but it sounds like it became known only because it was a memetic (and maybe composite) success, only having to compete with the few "glorious failures", not the many occasions where some basic idea (that may have eventually led to better ideas) just didn't work or notably fail. 172.70.160.195 14:52, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

11 paragraphs should be 5-7. 172.71.151.155 05:04, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Just in case it’s relevant, since there’s a few comments here about ancient Chinese man-carrying kites: I went deep down a rabbit hole and the evidence for them having existed is significantly flimsier than an initial Google search makes it seem. All of the sources eventually just lead back to two quotes from two ancient Chinese historians, both describing one single supposed incident. And the story fits the extremely common apocryphal framework of “here’s this crazy way in which this evil king was cruel.” There’s no other evidence at all, that I can find. 172.69.70.199 (talk) 04:28, 31 January 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Annotated the image here... Green line is "current absolute record" (assuming the truth of the plot), blue line is "highest height that will now always have someone higher" (again, going by the plot), red line is "record by a living individual" (based upon the plot, and several historical truths I could discern, but probably getting to be as much speculative as the original joke-plot-with-a-passing-basis-in-fact). 172.69.79.164 01:39, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

In 1966 there should be a peak above 1000km, the Gemini 11 flight, September 12-15, 1966, which reached an apogee of 1,374 kilometers. Rps (talk) 17:01, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

It seems like the graph is ignoring USSR's Space Station Mir. Per wiki, it was occupied for 12.5 years of its 15 year lifespan from 1986 to 2001. Honestly, feels like a weird thing to miss while including the ISS explicitly. 172.70.207.140 06:45, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

since it got removed in the last edit, here's iss height over time. change the start & end mjd to zoom in Regex user (talk) 11:15, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Hmm, that edit did a lot of "tightening". And seemed to give up trying to tighten, by the end, merely chopping whole segments (it now gives the impression that there's just one alternate interpretation of the Title Text, instead of the several valid ones). Can't deny, some of the things I wrote in were excised, but I won't take it personally. Some bits seem random; e.g. it has lost the link to "hoist by one's own petard", whilst keeping the base phrase about gunpowder (strange choice, as the link doesn't add to word-count in that section), as well as now never really explaining why the (undocumentable) wind-blown record-holders are even significant. Could do with some (careful) editing back in. I admire the attempt, and I know it probably needed pruning from how it was, so I'm respecting the intention but pointing out that it might need a bit of selective re-adding (or paraphrasing) from the original. Leaving it up to less verbose types than myself, though (who are also not too laconic). 172.70.91.245 13:55, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

I was laughing so hard inside the moment I saw this comic. Well done, Randall. ⯅A dream demon⯅ (talk) 19:28, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

After 1940, there was surely never again one moment where no airplaine was significantly higher than 1km above the ground. Not during the war in Europe and Far East (surveillance planes!), certainly never afterwards. --172.68.193.135 19:16, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

> volcano

JOOOOOOJOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! --211.171.109.74 23:42, 16 November 2025 (UTC)
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